Have you really left?

Ariell

I'm sure we all view the Watchtower Society as a mind controlling dictatorship that has systematically destroyed our lives is some shape or form. I'm sure this is why we've all left, but have we really? Someone can physically leave a religion, but emotionally they're still there. They still believe. Whereas a person who no longer believes stays physically becauses he/she wishes for no one to learn of their secret demise. I would consider the one who is no long a believer as the person who has truly left and the former as very much still in. This is a black and white situation though. It's not always that simple. Let me explain:

There are Jehovah's Witnesses who can't imagine leaving the faith and living their life as is. Some go to great lengths in order to find another religion or another way of understanding the bible before offically leaving. It's like a person who is in a relationship, but afraid to be alone. So they go out to find another person to be with before deciding to leave their spouse or significant other.

Ariell

................................continued

At first we are all excited to learn about the deciet of this organization and confirm our long lived suspicions, but then reality hits: "I'm going to die one day." "I'm never going to see my child, mother, or sister again." That's a hard pill to swallow. However, some of us choose to accept it and come to the conclusion that we will never know the "truth" until after we die, if at all. We go on with our lives and don't dwell on it. Yet there are others who need an answer. They need the "truth". It's like they're replacing one drug with another. Not only do they feel the need to believe again. They also (not all, but some) feel the need to convert. Sounds familiar? Likewise, I find myself trying to convert others to my agnostic views. So I have to ask myself.........Have I really left?

P.S. Does anyone else have problems with submitting long posts?

Angharad

Are you trying to copy and paste from word? If so that could be causing the problem.

If you have a long post, copy and paste it from notepad and then format it within the forum window.

franklin J

...yes, I have left, lock stock and barrell.

It has been so many years that it is difficult to remember just how stifling it was.

Stefanie

When I read the title of the thread I thought it was going to be about physically leaving. For me emotionally leaving was easy. I just kept coming here and my faith that JWs were not the truth kept growing. I dont fear dying or my children dying anymore. I still havent DA myself. I know I should because i dont know if am still part of their stats.

It was just a big mess i got myself into, even worse than getting pregnant at 16.

Sentinel

What you say here is very true. True for me anyway. I knew it wasn't the "truth" long before I ever considered leaving physically. For about ten years, I hung on emotionally and did the things a good JW is supposed to do, meetings, service, etc., gradually dwindling down to a place where I just couldn't live the lie any longer. I knew I'd lose my dear mother, and all my friends--my foundation of life since the age of fourteen.

I left in '81--just made my decision and that was it; but the guilt and pain stayed with me way too long. I was living in limbo. Although as I grew older, I learned more about myself and made some changes, I still carried a great deal of that "programming" along with me, plus lots of misperceptions about childhood, etc.

I'm nearly 58, and I didn't really get myself totally purged until about three years ago. It was a purposeful journey I began, to question everything about my life, my upbringing, my cognitions since childhood, and the religion that so affected my family. It has taken a long time, but I'm totally free now in every way. It has given me so much peace and happiness...finally.

/<

Elsewhere

I left the WTS mentally years before I did physically.

Sabine

Someone can physically leave a religion, but emotionally they're still there. They still believe

This is true of my husbands two siblings that have been disfellowshipped over ten years. What was strange was that after our daughter died and we finally "saw the light" they were not supportive of us calling the JWs a cult. As a matter of fact, they called the congregation that was having a memorial talk for my father-in-law and told them not to be fooled by our presence there because we considered them a cult.

They have been physically out, but in their hearts are waiting to die at Armagedon, and feel they are just not good enough to be good witnesses...very sad.

Carmel

Many years after I left, physically, emotionally and any other way one can conjure, I realized that a lot of my basic skepticism about many things in life could be traced back to my early doubts about the veracity of the Borg and its claptrap ideas. So, what part had I not left, the goofiness or my reaction thereto?

I'm still "cause driven" but not so much so that I fail to preserve the dignity of others. Important not to go from one dependant relationship to another...which I tried and realized that the available choices in religion at the time were not for me..

carmel

FlyingHighNow

I haven't been regularly to the meetings for 15 years. I do feel like I'm out. I won't say I am unscarred though.

Have you really left?

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